don't tell me if I'm dying
by BookkeeperThe
Summary: Maybe it's the alcohol, or the city glittering beneath them, or Jess pressed against his side. Maybe it's just the relief of being finished with midterms. All Sam knows is that tonight, he can almost forget everything he's running from.


**Notes: title comes from the song Angels on the Moon by Thriving Ivory. The Shakespeare quote is from Henry VI. Set halfway through Sam's freshman year at Stanford. **

**Warnings: underage drinking and other Winchester-type crimes, language.**

**.**

It's the night of the last day of midterms – closer to the next morning, really – and they're all giddy with relief and false confidence and alcohol. Most of them aren't supposed to be drinking and none of them are supposed to be on this roof, but Jess' roommate convinced a TA to let them up.

(_Sam can pick any lock and hack any system and, if it comes to it, charm and lie his way through any door. He knows who trusts educated college students and who trusts simple country boys. He knows when to add that touch of earnest southern drawl. He knows how blinding his smile is._)

Palo Alto is spread out before them, a network of lights shining through the darkness. Thumping music reaches them from the clubs in the city and the frat houses down the street. The air is cool, refreshing after hours in stuffy lecture halls. Jess is warm against Sam's side, his arm around her waist, her head on his shoulder. He drinks her in more eagerly than any of the half-rate alcohol they nabbed from a magnanimous upperclassman.

(_Sam has been drinking since he was thirteen, beer whenever Dean felt like dragging him along to a bar, a shot of whiskey whenever he was hurt bad enough for stitches. He can count on one hand the number of times he's held someone like this when no one was bleeding._)

Rhett is explaining their future.

"Alright, alright, so once Aruj is the first Hindu president, he's gonna appoint me head of NASA – _if _it's an appointed position," he adds when Aruj opens his mouth to protest. "And I'll get us to Mars. Meanwhile, Vanessa's gonna eradicate poverty with all her incredible econ policies, so that Jess can stop treating sick kids in Africa (since they'll all be better with vaccines and stuff) and find a cure for cancer. Sam, though," Rhett continues, shaking his head in mock despair. "I dunno, man, you know what Shakespeare said. 'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.'"

Jess laughs, the sound vibrating through her bones and into Sam's.

(_Sam could kill Rhett without even breaking a sweat. He could kill everyone on this roof, blow town, and be in a new state with a new name by daybreak, easy and automatic like brushing his teeth. It's not exactly what he's been trained for, but it's close enough. Sometimes he wonders if there's any difference at all._)

"Sam wants to do pro bono work," Vanessa says lightly. "He was telling us."

"What, you mean, public defender stuff?" Aruj asks.

"Yeah," Sam agrees. "I figure there's no reason people should have crap lawyers just because they don't have any money."

(_They've never bothered with lawyers, public defender or otherwise. A paperclip and he's out of the handcuffs. A moment alone and he's out the window. A frantic phone call and he's out of the county, Dad tearing him a new one for still being at the scene when the cops showed up, and no he doesn't want any excuses, they were supposed to be keeping a low profile._)

"But aren't they like, criminals?" Rhett prods.

"Hey, hey," Aruj protests. "This is America, man. Innocent until proven guilty."

"Sure," Rhett concedes. "But if they _are _guilty –"

"Then they still need a good lawyer," Jess interjects. "An even better one. Just because they're criminals doesn't mean they're bad people."

"Right," says Sam gratefully. "Maybe it was just . . . their circumstances, or whatever. Maybe they had a good reason."

"So you're thinking, like . . . crime is a societal disease, not an individual moral failing," Rhett suggested.

"Yeah."

(_Sam is not thinking that at all. Sam is thinking about girls' toys wrapped in shiny paper, out of place in a dingy, cheap motel room. Sam is thinking about prescriptions with false names when whiskey wasn't enough but hospitals were out of the question. Sam is thinking about fireworks set off on private property by a couple of kids with a stolen lighter._)

"Alright, alright. Works for me," Rhett agrees. "So Aruj is president, I'm taking us to Mars, Vanessa's ending poverty, Jess is curing cancer, and Sam is helping all those well-meaning criminals out there not get screwed by the system."

"We're like the Justice League, except lame as shit," Aruj puts in.

"Hey, shut up," says Rhett good-naturedly, shoving him. "We're not lame. We're real. We're the _future._"

"The leaders of tomorrow," Vanessa quotes, parroting every welcome speech and flyer that was tossed at them upon their arrival to this safe, sheltered section of the world.

"Exactly." Rhett suddenly leaps up and runs to the edge of the roof, gripping a radio antenna with one hand while Vanessa shrieks and Jess laughs and Aruj rolls his eyes, and it's stupid and dangerous but Sam is laughing too.

"You hear that? We're the future!" Rhett shouts to the skies, immortal, invincible. They're never going to die. They're never going to break.

(_Sam has nightmares and secrets which would make his friends run screaming in terror. Sam has parts of himself he wants to carve out with a hot knife. Sam has a bleeding wound where one particular part of him was torn away by a devastating betrayal, and he doesn't always know who betrayed whom._)

Sam has friends. Sam has faith. Sam has a future.

Jess wraps her arms around him, stretches up on tiptoe to hook her chin over his shoulder and speak in his ear, warm and sure and full of quiet joy.

"We're going to save the world, Sam."

In this moment, Sam believes it.


End file.
